THWAITES GLACIER

Feb. 10, 2020

A new study has pinned the cause of the melting of Thwaites Glacier to the presence of warm water at a vital point beneath the glacier.

About:

Thwaites Glacier is an Antarctic glacier flowing into Pine Island Bay, part of the Amundsen Sea.
It is unusually broad and fast glacier with its surface speeds exceeding 2 km/yr near its grounding line.
- The grounding line is the place below a glacier at which the ice transitions between resting fully on bedrock and floating on the ocean as an ice shelf.
- The location of the line is a pointer to the rate of retreat of a glacier.
Along with Pine Island Glacier, Thwaites Glacier has been described as part of the "weak underbelly" of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. It is predicted that it will gradually melt, leading to an irreversible collapse over the next 200 to 1000 years.
Significance: Because of its size (1.9 lakh square km), it contains enough water to raise the world sea level by more than half a metre.